7 Natural Pest Control Hacks That Will Save Your Garden
The best natural pest control doesn’t require chemicals. It’s more about mechanical and cultural conditions than it is about spraying pests as you notice them. If you’re wondering how to keep insect pests at bay in your garden, experienced gardener Sarah Jay has seven tips to help you out.
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When we say “natural pest control”, we mean non-chemical. Even organic sprays are chemicals, and you can grow a garden without them. Leave these as a last resort, and use other strategies first. You may find you’re using sprays and dusts a lot less when you do.
The culture of your garden is your first line of defense. How you weed, what you plant, and your timings all influence how well your garden grows. When pests arrive, as they inevitably will, mechanical controls become your second defense. Barriers, strong water streams, and sanitization all help you keep pests at bay.
This is our focus here in this piece. We focus on the mechanical and cultural controls, which directly influence biological controls, or the beneficial insects that eliminate pests for you. By focusing on these areas, you avoid chemicals that can make matters worse.
Small Space, Big Harvests Starter Mix
Small Space, Big Harvests Starter Mix
Just Tell Me What to Plant Starter Pack
Just Tell Me What to Plant Starter Pack
Grow Flowers
We mentioned biological controls above. To bring in predatory insects that provide natural pest control, you need flowering plants. The best ones are native to your region. These bring in plenty of local hoverflies, parasitic wasps, beetles, spiders, and plenty of solitary bee species.
You don’t have to plant solely natives, but you’ll get the greatest benefit from them. If you need a few ideas of what to plant, here are some options that will attract beneficial predators to your garden. Note that there are even more beneficials attracted to these plants than those that are listed.
| Plant | Beneficial Insects |
| Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) | Lacewings, hoverflies, ladybugs, pirate bugs, parasitic wasps |
| Dill (Anethum graveolens) | Tachinid flies, hoverflies, ladybugs, pirate bugs, parasitic wasps |
| Blanketflower (Gaillardia spp.) | Hoverflies, predatory wasps |
| Coreopsis (Coreopsis spp.) | Ladybugs, hoverflies, predatory beetles |
| Milkweed (Asclepias spp.) | Ladybugs, hoverflies, parasitic wasps, pirate bugs |
Use Barriers
Early in the spring season, prolific pests like flea beetles, cutworms, and armyworms can wreak havoc on your garden. In these early moments, when plants are just getting established, these common pests are just waking up, and they’re hungry. Instead of spraying them to death, block them from access to your plants with barriers.
A small cage with a UV-penetrating cover is a great form of natural pest control. Your spring plants still receive the sunlight and rainwater they need to thrive, but external pest access is blocked. For larger areas, seek out row covers, which come in long sheets or in small modular covers you can place over raised beds.
Employ Trap Crops
There’s a lot of confusion about trap crops, but when they’re employed appropriately, they work amazingly as a natural pest control method. In vegetable gardens, it’s almost essential to have a few trap crops to keep aphids, mites, and caterpillars at bay. I know if I didn’t use them, pests would proliferate more and more year after year.
There are stipulations to trap cropping effectively. But basically, you plant your trap a few weeks before your more sensitive crop. Then plant the one you want to protect three to eight feet away. As the pest numbers increase on the trap, remove it and throw it away, keeping it out of the compost pile.
This method is usually used in veggie gardens, but it can be employed in ornamental gardens too if you want to try it out. Use trap crops in combination with other techniques on this list for the best results.
Mulch Your Garden
You’ve likely heard about using mulch to keep weeds out of the garden and to improve moisture retention. But did you know that it is also a great form of natural pest control? Organic mulches are effective in limiting thrips and leafminers. They keep soft-bodied pests, like snails and slugs, from reaching the base of plants.
They’re also excellent for keeping diseases out of the garden. By reducing water splashing up from the soil, fungal and bacterial pathogens don’t reach foliar areas where they can take hold and cause problems.
Locate Conveniently
One of the best changes I’ve made in my garden recently is keeping all my cultivated plants in a convenient locale. I let my natives do their thing in the further reaches of the yard, and keep my tomatoes, herbs, and other veggies close to my kitchen, on my back porch.
If you can, always plant your more sensitive plants where you can see them or at least get to them easily. Check on these every day. The best form of natural pest control is consistent monitoring.
Weed Your Garden
This technique is kind of a reverse form of using barriers to keep pests away. Multiple perennial and annual weeds actually host insect pests and diseases. So keeping these out of your garden and away from borders makes it harder for those pests to make their way to your plants.
This starts in early spring when the first weeds emerge. Try to catch them at the “white thread” phase, when they’re easiest to pull. If you missed that window, try to pull them at a more mature stage, or use a hand trowel to remove them, root and all. Even chopping them down will prevent pests from reaching the garden bed.
Companion Plant
We touched on this before with trap cropping and planting flowers, but there are numerous ways to companion plant and provide varying forms of natural pest control. Companion plants attract beneficial insects, repel pests, complement nutrient exchange between plants, and enhance biodiversity. All of these are excellent forms of natural pest control.
There are almost limitless combinations you can plant in your garden. It’s worth taking a look at a list to see if you can maximize the production in your garden, and keep the pests away.
